Known systems of that kind are constituted, for example, by systems for managing comfort, serenity, and/or energy, e.g. a system managing the opening and closing of shutters in a dwelling as a function of outside light levels or a system enabling the temperature inside a house to be reduced on the basis of information provided by presence detectors.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a prior art system S1.
The system S1 comprises a plurality of pieces of equipment, e.g. five pieces, that are connected to a management module HAB (for “home automation box”) via respective communications links L1, e.g. wireless links. The pieces of equipment comprise data-gathering equipment and equipment that is to be controlled. A piece of data-gathering equipment may be a sensor (C1, C4) or a domestic appliance (D2, D3) that includes one or more sensors (C2, C3). The sensors C1, C2, C3, C4, . . . are suitable for gathering data and for passing it to the management module HAB. A piece of equipment that is to be controlled is a domestic appliance (D1, D3) having one or more actuators (A1, A2) suitable for controlling the domestic appliance. It should be observed that a piece of equipment may include both a sensor and an actuator. Depending on the data that is passed along by the sensors, the management module HAB transmits commands to the actuators as a function of predetermined usage rules. For example, the sensors C1, C2, . . . may be light sensors and the actuators A1, A2 may serve to open and close shutters. A usage rule stored in a memory of the management module HAB serves to cause the shutters to be opened if the sensor C1 and the sensor C2 indicate a high level of light, and to cause the shutters to be closed, otherwise.
If an application running in the management module fails, that leads to the system ceasing to function. The pieces of equipment no longer receive any new orders and they remain in the state in which they were at the time of the failure. For example, the shutters remain closed in broad daylight.
This situation is difficult for the customer to accept, particularly if the failure persists for any length of time.
There also exists a need for a solution that enables an application failure in the management module to be mitigated.